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PwC Survey: Blockchain + Logistics Is the Most Expected Scenario

As a distributed ledger that can settle concerns on trust, blockchain technology has attracted more and more attention. PwC, one of the “Big Four” accounting and consulting firms, has recently released a report prepared in partnership with a Chinese blockchain startup VeChain, on how well public and enterprises understand the technology and what problems enterprises expect to solve through applying blockchain.

The report entitled “2018 Market Survey for (Non-financial) Application of blockchain in China” analyzes how blockchain could affect the business ecosystem. A group of PwC’s clients were surveyed with half of these firms yielding an annual revenue of over $100 million, ranging from traditional industries and high-tech sectors, 100% of whom believed blockchain is most promising in logistics, next comes government projects and healthcare domain.

52.8 percent of responded believed blockchain technology would have great impact on business ecosystem, among whom those have already applied blockchain technology in their business offer a positive evaluation about it.

When asked the kernel of blockchain technology, most respondents said the tamper-proof feature (85.71%) and distributed system (83.46%) are disruptive. While many industry sources point out that how to ensure the authenticity of data before migrating it on-chain is a big challenge.

The report also unveiled that enterprises with traditional industry background have a more favorable attitude towards blockchain, and entrepreneurs and startups are more interested in this emerging technology.

Featured by irreversibility, blockchain is most used in anti-counterfeiting and security traceability in practical applications. All of the respondents believed blockchain could perform best in the supply chain management.

The report indicates that logistics is the most natural and leading industry for the application of blockchain technology and is most likely to create practical value. Blockchain in government projects is also anticipated for its strong demonstration and credit enhancement effect, which can greatly improve the cognition and spread of blockchain technology. Healthcare field ranks third after logistics and government projects. While the requirement for information authenticity in this domain is far more demanding than others. The expectation of blockchain technology in medical treatment mainly comes from their need for authenticity of medical information and drug information.

The recent developments in the industry also reflect the various exploration of integrating blockchain technology into logistics industry. Last year, Walmart and a group of food giants are partnering with IBM to explore applying blockchain technology to their food supply chains. Early this year, JD Logistics joined Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA), and Alibaba’s logistics affiliate uses blockchain to detect fraud in the supply chain of imported goods. Weeks later, another Chinese dotcom giant Tencent launched the blockchain-based supply-chain consortium.